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Collaborating Authors
Abstract The objective and scope of this paper are to present how an Oil&Gas Company (the Company) has furthered its biodiversity ambition by joining the Act4Nature initiative. This initiative is led by a French multi-sectorial and CEO lead industry association called Enterprises for the Environment (Entreprises pour l'Environnement, EPE). In 2017, EPE's biodiversity commission launched the Act4Nature initiative, which offers a ‘frame of reference’ for a biodiversity ambition through a combined generic and specific set of biodiversity commitments for businesses. One of the key aims of Act4Nature, is to provide a contribution towards the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) efforts to combat global biodiversity loss. The 2018-2020 period are important years for global biodiversity strategic protection efforts as the CBD has set itself the short-term goal of developing a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), building on its 2010-2020 Targets (said the "Aichi" targets) and as a stepping-stone towards its 2050 Vision Living in Harmony with Nature. However, the CBD has indicated that the Aichi targets will likely not be met in their entirety. This was echoed by the United Nation Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 report indicating that global biodiversity loss is occurring at unprecedented levels. In this context, the need for voluntary Business biodiversity commitments is even more pressing, relevant and expected from stakeholders. Importantly, the CBD recognises the important role of business, including oil and gas, in combating biodiversity loss. In terms of methods, the Act4Nature biodiversity commitments were developed through an intense nine months stakeholder engagement process, involving Company staff, EPE members and partners, which included Biodiversity Foundations, NGO and key French governmental authorities responsible for biodiversity. The Act4Nature initiative includes 10 key common, generic and aspirational, commitments that were developed through a consensus-based approach of EPE members, including the Company. These members represent very diverse business activities, including utilities, agro-food industry, luxury apparel, glass products, energy, automotive etc., which poses an understandable challenge for reaching a consensus. In addition, to the common commitments each member company was requested to submit company specific commitments. The Company provided six such commitments, both operational and aspirational, some of which existed before the initiative. The opportunity arose, as part of the Company's engagement contributions, to mainstream the Ipieca-IOGP Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (BES) Fundamental Management Practices in the Act4Nature common commitments. Thus, this allowed for alignment with the O&G industry's biodiversity & ecosystem services fundamental practices concerning biodiversity governance, stakeholder engagement, baselines, impact assessment, the Mitigation Hierarchy and reporting. In parallel to this external engagement process, the Company conducted an impact analysis of the commitments on its business strategy and governance during which the Company CEO was fully engaged. The impact analysis ensured the feasibility of this new ambition whilst offering the Company the opportunity to further its biodiversity related management to additional domains such as the supply chain, nature-based solutions and climate change impacts to biodiversity. The paper provides some early examples of operational implications, both challenges and benefits, deriving from the implementation of these commitments at business segment and site level, to move away from the business as usual scenario. In terms of outcomes and results, the Company's CEO adhered to the Act4Nature initiative on the 10 of July 2018, accelerating biodiversity good practices mainstreaming across the Company, improved integration of biodiversity into the Group's environmental road map and upgrading of its dedicated biodiversity action plan. The new biodiversity aspiration allows reducing biodiversity related risks and increasing benefits, improving employee and external stakeholder perception and improve opportunities such as attracting new partners. The Group may also benefit from differentiating itself from its competitors and improving its business opportunities whilst creating shared value for Society as a whole. This paper is providing guidance and return on experience on developing public biodiversity commitments for Oil &Gas Companies.
Abstract Numerous scientific reports highlight the continued global decline in biodiversity. In response, the 14 Conference of the Parties for the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD COP) agreed on the need to mainstream biodiversity into a number of sectors including of energy and mining. Accordingly, IPIECA-IOGP engaged with global stakeholders, sharing messages of good practices for biodiversity management. There is a clear need for engagement, which will continue in CBD COP-15 as a new post-2020 global biodiversity framework to set the necessary action to halt the decline in biodiversity is developed. IPIECA-IOGP engaged with the CBD COP-14 process in the following ways:Hosted an industry engagement and knowledge-sharing workshop and a cross-sectoral side event ahead and during CBD COP-14 Attended SBSTTA 21 and SBI 2 and contributed in multiple side events Presented at the ‘International expert meeting on mainstreaming biodiversity in the energy and mining, infrastructure, and manufacturing and processing sectors’ Presented at CBD COP-14 High Level Segment Senior representation at the Leaders’ Breakfast IPIECA-IOGP and multiple member presentations at the Biodiversity and Business Forum Cross-sectoral messaging shared at the Rio Pavilion IPIECA-IOGP intervention during the COP negotiations IPIECA-IOGP's successful engagement at CBD COP-14 was acknowledged by a number of key international stakeholders, include Members States and UN bodies and was important in the work undertaken by IPIECA-IOGP and the oil and gas sector more widely. Lessons learned feed into ongoing outreach with the COP process. As CBD COP-15 draws closer, IPIECA-IOGP will be sharing messages around good BES management practices in the oil and gas industry. Underpinning the COP-14, and the future COP-15, engagements was a strong technical focus on the six interrelated management practices, providing a framework for management of BES across the oil and gas asset life cycle: Build BES into governance and business processes. Engage stakeholders and understand their expectations around BES. Understand BES baselines. Assess BES dependencies and potential impacts. Mitigate and manage BES impacts and identify BES opportunities. Select, measure and report BES performance indicators. Oil and gas companies integrate (BES) conservation considerations into their business management systems, using a risk-based approach to manage the potential impacts to the environment. Governments too can enhance efforts to embed biodiversity considerations in the life cycle. Coordination between sectors is key, particularly when developing national biodiversity strategies and action plans. Practice #5 considers the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimise, restore, offset), which offers industry and governments a framework for good practice management. Building on existing work, this messaging will be taken forward throughout communication to 2020 when CBD COP-15 sets the future global biodiversity agenda. The paper presents the new communications materials developed for the oil and gas industry engagement during the CBD COP process. There have been attempts at engaging in the past, but this represents a collaborative, industry approach which is both novel and effective to-date.
Abstract The Taninthayi Nature Reserve Project (TNRP) has been operating in southern Myanmar since 2005. TNRP involves payments from three companies to support the creation and on-going management of a protected area as compensation for potential impacts to biodiversity from the construction and operation of three gas pipelines. This public-private partnership is unique in Myanmar and could form the basis of a model which can be applied to other developments in the country. We reviewed relevent literature and interviewed staff and stakeholders involved with the development and implementation of the TNRP in order to understand the model, identify some key lessons. As a framework for comparison the model was reviewed against current leading practice, primarily the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standard 6 (PS6), and the Business and Biodiversity Offets Program (BBOP) Standard on Biodiversity Offsets. This review revealed that the project has broadly met its stated goals and objectives: The companies have met their financial commitments. Stakeholder criticism of pipeline biodiversity impacts has been limited. A protected area has been established and managed since 2005, with socio-economic development programmes delivered to surrounding communities. The capacity of government staff involved in the TNRP has been improved. The TNRP was not originally developed to be in alignment with modern standards and the TNRP is not an offset. The TNRP thus does not meet current mitigation or offsetting best-practice in many areas. Our review does, however, highlight key lessons learned for developments to limit their impact on biodiversity and manage the associated risks effectively: Impact assessments should thoroughly analyse direct and indirect impacts to biodiversity. The mitigation hierarchy should be followed during the construction and operation of infrastructure. Should offsets be required, it is necessary to quantify biodiversity losses from development impacts and gains from conservation activities in order to identify how much compensation is enough. Monitoring of actions on the ground is the only way to determine their success in mitigating residual impacts to biodiversity.
- Asia > Myanmar (1.00)
- Europe > United Kingdom > England (0.28)
Protecting Marine Environments Using the Framework of the Mitigation Hierarchy to Implement Barriers and Controls During Exploration and Development Projects
Sali, Jason (Eni Natural Resources, HSEQ Department) | Estrada, Gustavo Calderucio Duque (Eni Natural Resources, HSEQ Department) | Pavanel, Elena (Eni Natural Resources, HSEQ Department) | Pedroni, Paola Maria (Eni Natural Resources, HSEQ Department)
Abstract Offshore marine environments supply a major source of global oil and natural gas and will be important for the development renewable energy in future. Currently, more than a quarter of oil and gas supply is produced offshore, a rise of more than 50% since 2000. Similarly, the production of offshore wind energy is expected to increase tenfold before 2040, and even more if the targets of the Paris Agreement are to be achieved (IEA 2018). Shallow coastal waters are particularly suitable and therefore pressure from both means is expected to increase. However, despite recent advances there are some technical and environmental challenges still to overcome before wind farms are able to follow Oil and Gas production into deep water habitats. For companies able to exploit this transition, the opportunities are substantial. The challenge of exploiting these, whilst balancing the variety of pressures on the world's oceans, requires the highest level of operational safety, environmental compatibility and adherence to best-practise frameworks. The application of the mitigation hierarchy framework stands out among these as the most practical tool for balancing offshore energy development with the protection of marine environments from harmful impacts. Oceans represent over 70% of the Earth's surface and 95% of its habitat (FFI 2017). Seemingly homogenous at the surface, oceans are in-fact extremely biologically diverse. With depths ranging from a few centimetres to over 8km, communities living within, how they are interconnected, and the function of the oceans remain largely enigmatic. Marine habitats are estimated to be home to over 80% of the world's biodiversity, a small fraction of which have been scientifically described (Mora et al 2011). Oceans, particularly the most accessible coastal regions, have always been a major source of food and other biological resources. It is estimated that over 3 billion people are reliant on coastal environments for food and nutrition, and over 200 million people are engaged in livelihoods reliant on the health of marine ecosystems. Recent advances in remote sensing technology have enabled scientists to track the movement of ocean currents in a way that was previously unimaginable. Together with the ability to accurately monitor ocean temperature, and water chemistry, scientists are now beginning to understand the complexity and connectivity of ocean basins, and the influence of global currents, tides and upwellings on global weather patterns, biomass production, and other globally essential process. Analogous to the human heart, the oceans are the "biological pump" that drives weather patterns, nutrient cycling, and other functions critical for planet ecology and therefore human wellbeing. Perhaps most importantly, given the global urgency for GHG management, oceans play a critical part of the carbon cycle, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, converting it to biomass and ultimately long-term storage within sediments on the ocean floor.
- North America > United States (0.94)
- Africa > Middle East > Egypt (0.28)
- Management > Strategic Planning and Management > Project management (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Sustainability/Social Responsibility > Social responsibility and development (0.75)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Sustainability/Social Responsibility > Sustainable development (0.68)
Abstract Corporate assessment of the impacts and dependencies associated with ecosystem services is coming of age. The processes has happened quietly, due in part to the 2012 update of the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards, and resulting expansion of due diligence for the 79 banks that have signed on to following the Equator Principles. The result is that a new bar has now been set in terms of expectations of companies and international best practice. This shift may be particularly relevant to the extractives industry in which so many joint venture partners rely on investors who will now consider ecosystem services issues. For many in the oil and gas industry, however, the question is: How does one undertake an ecosystem services analytical approach? This paper will describe why and the overall process for how to integrate ecosystem services analytical approach. The findings are based on 7 years of tracking ecosystem services analytical approaches within BSR’s Ecosystem Services Working Group as well as a series of interviews conducted between 2011 and 2013 with corporate pilot testers of ecosystem services analytical approaches. A series of steps are laid out, which can be added to existing processes.
- South America (1.00)
- Europe (1.00)
- Asia (1.00)
- (2 more...)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Banking & Finance (1.00)
- North America > United States (0.89)
- Asia > Vietnam (0.89)